Melaye said: “I think this will serve as a serious lesson to leaders. We leaders either at the federal, state or local government must be honest with the followers.

“It is because of two previous mistakes and lack of integrity that these people are afraid that it there might be a repeat and those fears are germane because the probability of them being evicted is very high.

“In fact, it would have happened if not that the case was brought to the Senate. We heard you had already militarised the people.

“In the event that new shops will be constructed, you will be beneficiaries without paying anything and you will only move in when they are ready. We are not taking any decision today.

“We are going to sit and decide and whatever the resolution is we will communicate to you, but I assure you it will be in the interest of the public.”

Earlier, Chairman of the traders association, Nelson Onwuamaodo, had said the association decided to petition the senate to prevent their eviction.

According to Onwuamaodo, we are the owners of the land and should be allowed to operate freely.

He said: “It was bare land and we were given a prototype to build shops across the market and we have been paying our grand rent and all the necessary dues.

“Sometime in 2007, the then chairman of AMAC demolished some part of the market, built some shops and sold them without compensation to those whose shops were demolished.

“Also in 2010, the then chairman also demolished some part of the market and built his own set of shops and sold them without compensation to the original owners.

“Now that we heard that development is going on in that place, we decided to bring our cry to Senate.

“This is so that if there is a need for remodelling the market, since we are the right owners of the place, the prototype should be given to us to individually build what AMAC wants.